Saturday 19 May 2007

For Freedom!

First published Feb 9th 2006

Freedom of expression is one of my favourite human rights (alongside the right to own property). But nothing is more confusing than the laws surrounding freedom of expression, and its unwritten boundaries.

Nick Griffin (leader of the British National Party, or BNP) and one of his loyal monkeys were recently cleared of race hate charges following a documentary by an undercover BBC journalist. The documentary included speeches proclaiming Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith" and likening asylum seekers to cockroaches, which is ironic considering the BNP are probably a worse pest than any cockroach.

Nick Griffin considered his win to be a "victory for freedom".

While the BNP couple were being trialled, Danish products were being boycotted by the Islamic world because of an offensive cartoons published by a Danish newspaper. The cartoons depicted the prophet with a bomb on his head, obviously sparking reactions from Muslims everywhere. The UN even had to appoint two experts on racism to investigate "disrespect for belief ".

However, despite demonstrations becoming more intense, the newspaper continued to defend its freedom of expression.

Freedom of expression is a beautiful thing. It gives rise to the vast variety of philosophies all over the world and enables us to learn some interesting things from one another. Heck, it even allows me to have my own column in a student newspaper where I can rant my cares away.
But I can't help but wonder, is it really only worthwhile exercising that right when you have something meaningful to say? Should we ban stupid people from freely expressing themselves? Where do we draw the line between meaningful and mind-numbingly irritating?

When you have a man preaching about how "ethnics" should be shown the metaphorical door, is it better to stifle his screams or suffer the piercing pain that is his opinion? Whilst Griffin's views may be controversial, should he be tried just for speaking his mind? And then, when a newspaper decides to print really, really awful cartoons depicting a religious prophet, is it right to censor them on the basis that they're just not funny to some people?

Whilst I may not be a huge fan of Danish cartoons and the BNP, I believe in many things which are open to ridicule (I'm not telling). This doesn't mean that people aren't allowed to disagree with or even mock me.

If we suddenly decide that nobody can poke fun at any religion, political parties or disagree with a particular individual, we're becoming dangerously close to putting a ban on expressing any ideology. Whilst an idea may mean the world to one person, it is always open to mockery by many others, a consequence of the diversity of the human race. Television shows such as South Park and The Simpsons are mostly hilarious because they exploit certain ideologies.

People can't seem to accept that everyone has the right to passively abuse other people's sentiments. Should religious folk be banned from saying that homosexuality is immoral? Should gays be banned from saying those religions are stupid? Should the BNP be trialled for calling immigrants names? Should I be arrested for calling the BNP names as a result? No.

Free expression allows us to freely insult one another and contradict one another's views. It would be a shame if satire were sacrificed just so that nobody would get offended and threaten to kill us all. It would certainly be a shame if extremist political parties were censored, just because they keep everyone on their toes. Besides, if nobody were allowed to freely express their opinions, their latent stupidity would never become obvious to the world. For example, those burning flags in response to the cartoons probably don't realise that, according to their views, they should probably boycott the internet before they start boycotting Danish products; it's full of more anti-Muslim sentiments than any one country will ever contain.

Unfortunately, not everybody can utilise expression respectably to counter opinions. Whilst it is within everybody's rights to protest against something which they find offensive, burning embassies and sporting placards threatening Europe with extermination, demolition and beheading is just slightly counterproductive, just as it would be silly to physically assault BNP members for their beliefs.

When faced with an offensive expression, the best we can do is to suppress reaction. Angry reactions just spark more publicity, as has been evident by both the pyromania due to the cartoons and the silliness that was the BNP race-hate trial. Publicity, of course, makes the world curious.

Perhaps the best use of your freedom is to occasionally choose not to express yourselves. If you ignore someone for long enough, they may eventually realise that nobody cares, nobody is listening and their opinions are worth sod all to the majority of the universe.

1 comment:

The Green Arrow said...

Well I happen to think that you are so far up your own behind that you cannot see the truth.

Nick Griffin and the B.N.P. are the only political party that means what it says and says what it means.

That aside, although I think your a plonker, I would defend to the death the right for you to reveal your ignorance.